Young Japanese architects looking for new housing style for communication-thirsty Japan

May 31, 2012

Young Japanese architects looking for new housing style for communication-thirsty Japan

Japan’s society is flush with information amid the fast spread of new communication tools, but residents of the rich, advanced country, particularly young people, appear to be thirsty for truly satisfactory communication with someone else.
Solitary persons’ unnoticed deaths have continued to draw media attention in Japan. This reflects weakening human relations mainly in urban areas following the aging of society and the trend toward the nuclear family.
Until a few decades ago, Japanese tended to choose trouble-free, privacy-oriented urban life, hoping to live in condos and apartment houses, but they have become aware of the demerits of the conventional housing styles, Hiroyasu Sawa, a young member of the Fukuoka Association of Architects and Building Engineers, said in a recent interview.
Architects’ jobs are basically to provide hardware for customers, but “we have to think about changes in society, too,” in order to propose new housing styles and software, such as management, to meet people’s diversifying housing-related needs, he said.
Sawa and Yukari Fujita, another member of the association, are key organizers of a workshop to introduce “collective housing” projects in Tokyo and other parts of Japan as an influential new living style aimed at better communication among dwellers. The workshop is part of activities by a team of 15 or so young architects who belong to the association. It was initially launched in 2004 and after a four-year interval, restarted in September 2011.
Collective housing is an innovative housing style in which residents share part of their life while having common space for meals and other purposes. The communication-oriented housing style was proposed in a “paradigm shift” in studies about the way of housing and living amid the changes in the social situation in Japan, Sawa said. “This may not be a general solution to the problems facing us, but it should be an occasion to study about a desirable housing style for today’s Japan,” said Sawa, who served as the moderator at a recent workshop about collective housing, the fifth in the current resumed round.
Collective housing initially started in Sweden in the 1970s to enable residents to share child care, housekeeping and other jobs following an increase in working women. In Japan, collective housing has been expected as a solution to various problems facing Japan’s society, such as increases in families of elderly couples, single mothers and independent working women.
There are a variety of communication-oriented housing units according to the extent of common space to be shared by residents. “Shared houses” are so designed as to have individual single rooms for residents but have a common dining room to have meals together. This compares with “collective housing” in which residents have independent rooms with kitchens and dining space but they also have common space to have meals together periodically or a lounge to have a chat with each other. There are various other examples, for rent and for sale, with many generations or not, between shared houses and collective housing in light of the specific needs among the residents involved. The importance of ensuring communication and mutual support among dwellers began to be felt strongly after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, which claimed about 6,000 lives in Kobe and neighboring regions. People’s awareness of the need for mutual support became even stronger after the devastating earthquake and tsunami waves which extensively damaged the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan in March 2011.
The Tohoku earthquake left approximately 19,000 people dead or missing and caused various changes and scars in Japan’s society, among them an increase in the number of marriages, not just in affected regions but elsewhere, too. This reflects young people’s desire to have bonds or links with someone else in today’s uncertain society.
“Young people hope to be tied to somebody or something,” Sawa said. "They just want to feel the same things together and feel their goodness together." They can communicate with each other easily with such tools as the twitter and the facebook, but actually, they rather lack communication in the true sense of the term, he said. People, young or not, are seen to be lured to a housing style in which communication is ensured and various values are shared among residents, Sawa said.
Shared houses are rather popular among young people, but collective housing can better provide a sense of communication and mutual support to residents, according to Fujita. In shared houses, people have common things together and take them back to their respective rooms, while collective housing is designed for people to bring together and share things. This allows people to feel the common space more closely to them.
The collective housing workshop was initially proposed mainly by female architects. Women must be thinking about their way of living “more realistically” when they get old, Fujita said. Women prepare meals every day and how their life should be after their partner passes away is expected to be an issue of strong interest for them, she said.
There must be needs for collective housing as a communication-oriented housing style in Fukuoka, but there are none at present. Fukuoka, the most populous city in Kyushu, southwestern Japan, is known as an area that accommodates many students and single-member families. People in the related circles “are just unaware that collective housing will be a feasible business” in Fukuoka, Sawa said. “We have to do more to disseminate information about collective housing in this city,” he said.

Japan’s first retirement village redesigning itself amid new realities

April 8, 2012

Japan’s first retirement village redesigning itself amid new realities

Yayoi Hattori and Masumi Kawamura continued to run their activity circle at the Minaginomori retirees community in southwestern Japan for almost 10 years, but they hope now that somebody will come forward to succeed their activity.
The Society of Nidowarashi, which means the second childhood or the return to the childhood, was inaugurated mainly by the two women and their husbands in 2002, six years after the community was launched for sale in 1996 as Japan’s first retirement village. The group was so named by Shinji Hattori, who thought that residents can enjoy their new life in the town by returning to their childhood. “Children have a quarrel with each other, but they make it up when they meet the following day, you know,” he said. The society had no rules and no membership fee. “Anybody can come and enjoy whenever they want,” Yayoi Hattori said. (The last photo shows Ms. Hattori speaking at a luncheon.)
The Nidowarashi group suspended its activities at the end of 2010. Hattori and Kawamura agreed to do so, considering their physical strength toward the future. This has come at a time when the new town is trying to adapt itself to a series of new changes, including an increase in younger dwellers and Japan’s continuous economic downturn.
The first activity circle launched by residents by themselves organized parties and tours mainly on the occasion of seasonal events, such as the cherry blossom viewing party, the “Hina” doll festival on the Girls’ Day and the Christmas party. The group invited a semiprofessional male vocal group last year to play before residents. The purpose of its activities was to enable residents to well understand each other and have fun in their new life while breaking with their previous titles and positions.
Because Shinji Hattori, who was an executive at a major general trading house, likes to craft models, the first event by the group was aimed at flying paper planes at an open space. The event continued in a bigger scale for a few years. Male participants got exited about flying their paper planes, while women prepared meals, and they ate together in a break. “This told us the joy of having meals together,” recalls Yayoi Hattori, who worked with a major house builder as an architect.
The new town spreads over two hills north of the central part of Asakura City, Fukuoka Prefecture. The site has a total area of 126 hectares, including a golf course. The town is divided into three districts which cover an area of 76 hectares, but there are no gates or barriers around the community. At present, there are about 30 activity groups and circles, including golfing, tennis, trekking, aerobics, yoga, pottering and Japanese calligraphy. Lectures mainly about current topics are also provided from time to time.
The average age of dwellers was 59.2 at the end of March 2012, against 59.9 six years ago. The reduced average age reflects an inflow of relatively young families. Declines in land prices across Japan in the past years have made residential lots in the town affordable to less wealthier, younger families.
The number of dwellers in the community came to 535 at the end of March, about 35 pct of the projected level, and the number of households was approximately 320, or about 40 pct. The number of residents is increasing 20 to 30 every year. This is the highest growth in percentage among the 19 administrative districts in Asakura City, which has a population of about 57,000.
An inflow of younger families itself is rather welcome, said Yukiyasu Maeda, the head of the town committee. But he also noted that a gap has emerged between the original concepts for the town and the current situation. Specifically, medical and transportation services in the community are said to be insufficient, while there are no stores or eating places.
“We must explore a new community design so that our town can be adapted to the current realities,” Maeda said. As part of initial steps toward a new community design, the town committee envisions introducing a mobile shopping service for residents who are unable to go to downtown for shopping.
The Minaginomori project was launched after 10 years of preparations. The run-up for the ambitious project proved to be longer than expected mainly because of slow progress in land purchases. The developers involved, led by a local bank group, initially expected to sell all residential lots in about five years. But the target failed to be met, because Japan’s economy had fallen into the doldrums early in the 1990s.
The town started with a variety of facilities, including a clinic, a restaurant and a small convenience store. But the restaurant and the store were closed later, while the clinic suspended its business from time to time.
While admitting there are many challenges for the community and it is not easy to solve any of them, Maeda expects to take various measures on the dwellers’ side to improve the situation. The developers are burdened with loans on their past investment, while the local authorities are busy improving their own fiscal house. “That is true, but unless the situation is attended, this town may be a marginal community,” Maeda said. A marginal community, the concept proposed by a Japanese researcher, denotes an area which is difficult to function as a community with half of its population aged 65 or older.
At least some residents are concerned about the future of the new town and the future of their own life. Their fears are linked mainly to the absence of medical or nursing care services that inhabitants need when they become unable to take care of themselves. The developers initially planned to build three condos to provide nursing services in the community, but they were not realized. Nobushige Abe was a key member of the town committee when it was inaugurated in 2002. He worked with other members for four years to try to persuade the developers to meet their pledges to improve the living environment. Some plans were realized, but services for residents remain insufficient, according to Abe. The unsatisfactory situation has led not a few people to leave the town, he said.
“The situation has rather deteriorated in the 12 years since my family came here,” Abe said. “It might be said that this project had been too ambitious,” he said. Abe also said that whether a retirement community itself was necessary in Japan should be considered again.
The developers hope to invite businesses from outside to activate the new community by, among other things, building a residence-style nursing care facility. They intend to continue the current services for residents, and they have no plan to withdraw from the project.
The series of challenges lies for the 16-year-old town, but the Hattoris are satisfied with their decision to live in the town. Kawamura, the other founding member of the Nidowarashi group, and her husband also think so. “I love this town, because we can make friends with various people,” she said. “We also know that some sick persons recovered their health since they came here.” Men are usually less enthusiastic about community activities in Japan, “but husbands in this town are active in solving our problems,” she said. “I think this is great,” Kawamura said.
After Nidowarashi suspended its activities, Hattori and Kawamura talked to each other and agreed to hold a party once again, this time by seeking support not only from former Nidowarashi members but also from fresh female residents. The luncheon party, which was timed to coincide with the doll festival on the Girls’ Day, attracted about 40 people. Hattori and Kawamura thought that the event was a success as participants enjoyed meals prepared by the supporters.
Hattori thinks that the new town can be used as an experimental zone for researches to realize a better living environment for the elderly. Specifically, data may be collected for these studies by setting a lower speed limit for vehicles and introducing less stringent application standards for nursing care insurance.
Maeda sounded cautiously optimistic about the future of the community. The population in this town will increase from now on, he said, “because we will take various steps to activate our community.” The town committee expects to draw up a new community design in a study with the developer side.
The committee will collect residents’ opinions in a questionnaire for the study. “The bottom line is not money," Maeda said. “We must do more to strengthen our bonds by enhancing communication and mutual understanding,” he said.
A key concept in the new community design is expected to call for building a safe town for slow but active life in which many generations of people live in harmony. By drawing up the new design, “we would like to be a top model” in efforts to solve the problems for Japan amid the aging of society, Maeda said.

March 2011 catastrophe links 2 young men to launch mutually complementary relief activities

March 24, 2012

March 2011 catastrophe links 2 young men to launch mutually complementary relief activities

Hiroki Saijo, a native of Minami Sanriku Town, Miyagi Prefecture, and Kotaro Ohgami of Fukuoka City of Fukuoka Prefecture did not know each other before the catastrophe of March 11, 2011. But a piece of information Saijo placed on a website after the disaster to seek help for affected people in his home town caught Ohgami’s eye. Saijo had nothing to provide to affected people in Minami Sanriku, but he had knowledge about the situation in the town--that it, where the survivors are and what they need.
Ohgami, who leads a volunteer group based in Fukuoka, was thinking about how to start relief activities for the evacuees when he found Saijo’s message on the Internet. His group, called Fukuoka Front Line Support, hoped to supply relief goods to survivors in small and remote communities who tended to be left out of relief activities by public and big organizations. So, specific information provided by Saijo was helpful for his group. (The photo at the top shows, from left to right, Mr. Ohgami, his daughter and Mr. Saijo.)
Saijo works with an Internet service company in Tokyo. His family lives in an inland city west of Minami Sanriku, but some relatives and friends were in the affected town. He hurried home from Tokyo and then entered Minami Sanriku five days after the disaster. While staying at his uncle’s house, which had been unaffected, Saijo continued to support relief groups from other regions, including Ohgami and his staff, who were unfamiliar with the local situation. The mutually complementary activities by the two young men started in May and continued every time when Ohgami’s group visited Minami Sanriku.
When the earthquake-triggered tsunami waves began to hit widely scattered areas on the Pacific coasts from the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan to eastern Japan, Saijo’s grandmother was attending a party for a club of elderly people at a building in the town.
After the first attack of the earthquake hit the area, some participants fled out of the building, for fear that it would be flooded with tsunami waves. But employees at the building persuaded other people to stay while warning it would be rather dangerous to go out. His grandmother escaped from the third floor to the fourth floor and then to the roof. Those who were at the roof of the building survived, but those who had gone out for safer places were mostly dead, Saijo recalls.
His mother worked as a nurse at Shizukawa Hospital, located in the heart of Minami Sanriku, for about 30 years until a few years ago. After the debris was removed from around the damaged hospital building, a corner was set up near its entrance to receive flowers for about 70 victims there. Saijo told his mother, “Why don’t we go to the hospital?” But she never wanted to go there. “Maybe, it (the hospital) was no more a place for her to see,” he said, “because patients whom she knew and her former colleagues were among the dead.”
Ohgami organized a charity bazaar in Fukuoka along with other volunteer group leaders on the first anniversary of the March 11 disaster. He invited Saijo to come and help volunteers at the event. The Rainbow Square event included performances and shops of foods and goods as donations to affected people. The event was supported by members of about 10 different activist groups, who cooperated with each other across the walls of their organizations. The cross-organizational event style "will help them (the members) to increase their motivations for volunteer activities and make our entire relief activities more successful," said Masakatsu Hiyakawa, a key member of the Fukuoka Citizens' Network for Support to the Disaster Areas.

-"We will continue our activity for survivors for at least 10 years"-
Ohgami stressed the uniqueness of a paint art corner in which visitors paint a big rainbow with their hand prints together on nine separate panels one by one. The panels, when completed, were put together and displayed on the performance stage. “We will continue this rainbow painting activity” in the years ahead, Ohgami said. He hopes that the completed rainbow art panels will be displayed at a public place. He believes that activities for the tsunami-affected people and regions must be continued over the years. Saijo agreed. “We will continue our activities for at least 10 years,” Ohgami said.

-Fukuoka citizens form human chain to mourn disaster victims-
One block away from a shopping mall corridor as the venue of the Rainbow Square bazaar was a much bigger event organized by the Fukuoka city government with public and private organizations. The event was designed to mourn the disaster victims and increase people’s awareness about the importance of extending support in various styles to the survivors.
With about 30 booths set up at a square in front of the city hall building, volunteer and other groups introduced their relief activities and charity goods for the affected people. The “Never Forget March 11” event culminated into one minute of silent tribute for the disaster victims by about 1,500 Fukuoka citizens, who braved a piercing wind to form a big human ring hand in hand at 2.46 p.m., the exact moment of the unprecedented earthquake a year ago.

(video3) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video3) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video2) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video2) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video1) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video1) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

Ishinomaki Citizens Hoping to See Early Return of Happy Cherry Blossom Season

Ishinomaki Citizens Hoping to See Early Return of Happy Cherry Blossom Season

March 12, 2012

Mt. Hiyoriyama commands a good view of the central part of Ishinomaki City, with the Pacific seen to the south beyond fishery-related and residential zones on the seaside. Areas around the top of the 56-meter mountain have flowering cherry trees. That is why the hill-like mountain has been loved by Ishinomaki citizens as a nice location for their pleasure in early spring. But one can now see flattened and deserted areas and a few damaged buildings from an observatory at the top of the mountain.
Last year’s cherry blossom season passed with people coming to enjoy the cherry trees limited as it came a month after the tsunami disaster. But citizens hope that a happy cherry blossom viewing season will return this year.
Ishinomaki Municipal Hospital, located near the mouth of Old Kitakami River flowing into the Pacific, is one of the damaged buildings in the seaside area. The hospital was inundated and severely damaged by the tsunami waves. It could not perform its desired role of taking care of people when big disasters occurred. Hospital staff built a makeshift clinic at a different place and started receiving affected people there a few weeks later.
Mt. Hiyoriyama can be seen from many places in the heart of Ishinomaki City. The mountain was a good view to see for a 94-year-old woman, whose son runs a small Japanese-style “ryokan” hotel near JR (Japan Railways) Ishinomaki Station. The woman escaped the tsunami damage, but her son's hotel, on an ally leading to the station square, was flooded by the tide.
The hotel could not resume its business until May. The first floor of the hotel, with a dining room and a bathroom for customers and a living quarter for the family, was completely flooded. The old woman and her family escaped to the second floor when the tsunami waves came, and they spent the first night there. “We had not expected tsunami waves would come this close to our area,” the woman said. Her daughter, who lives in a different city, “came to us and took me to her home a few days later,” she said. Some ryokan owners are considering discontinuing their business because it is difficult to rebuild hotels at the previous places, her son said.
The damaged structures in the affected seaside area also include the charred building of Kadonowaki Elementary School. A big fire occurred after the attack of the tsunami waves and gutted the Kadonowaki district, including the school. The neighboring Minamihama district was also flattened by a separate fire following the tsunami waves. Across Old Kitakami River was another damaged school building, the building that had housed No. 2 Minato Elementary School. (The photo at the top shows the flattened Kadonowaki district with the sea lying ahead. The second photo from the top shows Kadonowaki Elementary School. Ishinomaki Municipal Hospital is seen in the third photo and No. 2 Minato Elementary School in the fourth photo. The remaining two photos are remote views of the damaged seaside and riverside areas from the top of Mt. Hiyoriyama.)
Fires in the two districts were not extinguished until a few days later. Fire fighters were initially unable to reach the areas because the fires were very strong. "Over 1,000 people were dead in the seaside area beyond Mt. Hiyoriyama. The mountain is right up there," said a fish shop employee said.
Main roads in the heart of the city are open for traffic with the debris like broken pieces of houses and buildings and damaged vehicles removed. But some buildings remain deserted. These damaged buildings cannot be demolished partly because their owners have died or become missing. “A sticker, reading ‘Please call the phone number below if you know the owner of this property,’ had been placed on the wall of this shop until a few weeks ago,” a local man said in front of a building once used as a marine product shop.
Some bright signs are emerging in the city, among them the reopening of a fish market at a temporary facility built at one of the raised land tracts near the previous market. Fish dealers at the new market were busy processing the day's catches from early morning. Many shops on main streets near Ishinomaki Station were washed away or damaged, but some shopowners are reopening their business as customers hope to help support local shops by buying their products.

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This series of seven stories is a product of a week-long swing (from February 24 to March 1) through the three prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, whose coastal areas were extensively damaged by the earthquake-triggered tsunami waves in March 2011. The series has become possible with cooperation extended by nearly 100 people, not just those who were interviewed but also ordinary people like hotel and restaurant employees, bus and taxi drivers and citizens who provided many pieces of important information about what is going on in the tsunami-damaged areas right now. The names of these people do not appear in the stories, but special thanks go to all the people, mentioned and not mentioned.